My Words: Fulfillment comes from embracing faith, love

Ring, ring. Dazed, I looked at the alarm clock and wondered how I had gotten here. Who could be calling this early? Just as I drifted off to sleep again, I heard my mother say, "It's for you." I picked up the phone to hear a man's voice asking if I had made it home safely the night before. "Yes," I replied.

As I set the receiver in the cradle, I began to shake violently. Ashamed, frightened and embarrassed beyond words, I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I began to recall the events of the night before.

Looking back, it wasn't hard to trace the path to this pit in which I found myself. Despite the unfailing love of my mother, I'd had difficulty dealing with my parents' divorce, even though she remarried before I turned 2. As I grew up, I began to understand that the man I called Daddy was not my father, and the desire to know my biological father grew. My adolescent years were especially difficult as I wrestled with feelings of abandonment and rejection, never feeling that I measured up or deserved to be loved. College provided an opportunity to discover myself and search for someone who could love me and accept me for who I was, but the cost was high. I began the vicious cycle of using alcohol to be someone I was not and to dull the pain of who I perceived myself to be.

After seven years of reckless living, failed relationships and alcohol abuse, I found myself sitting at home having dinner with my parents one Friday night. It wasn't the place where I, a single 24-year-old career woman, wanted to be. Yet I knew that home was the one place I would be safe from the influences and behaviors that had robbed me of my true self and turned me into the person I had come to despise.

Just a few weeks prior to that particular Friday night, I had made the decision to turn away from the worldly lifestyle that had consumed me and embrace the faith of my childhood. In a moment of desperation, I repented of my sin and rededicated my life to God, the only One who could love me unconditionally and fulfill my deepest desires.

Now, as I sat there with my parents, lonesome and hopelessly bored, the idea of going roller skating came to mind. I initially dismissed the idea, but eventually decided to go -- alone. Just weeks before I would have called a girlfriend and gone bar-hopping, but God had another plan.

As I stood at the rink's edge dreading "couple skate," a handsome young man rolled up and introduced himself to me. We skated hand-in-hand around the rink and into our future. That night, nearly 25 years ago, I met my dear husband, a man so much better than I deserve.

Dee Dee Wike is a stay-at-home mom and the author of "Good to the Last Drop (Refreshing Inspiration for Homeschool Moms and Other Busy Women)." She and her husband, Steve, have two children and live in Collierville.

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